THE DEVIL’S WALL: IN SEARCH OF HEINZ RUTHA

The play Wandervogel is based on the book The Devil’s Wall: The Nationalist Youth Mission of Heinz Rutha, written by British historian Mark Cornwall. In this talk the author will provide an introduction to the play, explaining what drew him to the subject and how he slowly uncovered the sources which enabled him to write about the life of Heinz Rutha (1897-1937). It is a vivid mixture of romantic nationalism, repressed homosexuality, and militant fascism. We travel from northern Bohemia to northern Italy, from Prague to London, from Brussels to Geneva. It is also a story of special interest to Czechs and Germans, for it takes us into some controversial areas of Czech history while placing one interesting Bohemian life in the European context of the early 20th century.

Mark Cornwall first visited Czechoslovakia in 1987 and has taught Czech history for 30 years. He is now Emeritus Professor of Modern European History at the University of Southampton. His books include The Undermining of Austria-Hungary (2000) and The Devil’s Wall: The Nationalist Youth Mission of Heinz Rutha (2012, translated into Czech in 2020). In 2022 he was awarded the Palacký Medal for Merit in the Historical Sciences by the Czech Academy of Sciences. He is writing a history of treason in the late Habsburg empire, and also researching Czech "traitors" in modern history.